Minimally invasive medical procedures are desirable because such procedures may reduce pain while providing relatively quick recovery times compared with conventional open medical procedures. Many minimally invasive procedures are performed with an endoscope (including, without limitation, laparoscopes). Such procedures permit a physician to position, manipulate, and view minimally invasive medical instruments inside the patient through a small access opening in the patient's body. In these types of procedures, instruments are often inserted into a patient through trocars placed through a body wall including several layers of overlapping tissue/muscle before reaching treatment sites in body cavities. One technique that may be part of a minimally invasive procedure is electrical ablation therapy. Electrical ablation therapy has been used to treat undesirable tissue, such as, for example, diseased tissue, cancer, malignant and benign tumors, masses, lesions, and other abnormal tissue growths. Conventional ablation therapies may include electrical ablation therapy, such as, for example, high temperature thermal therapy including, focused ultrasound ablation, radiofrequency (RF) ablation, and interstitial laser coagulation, chemical therapy in which chemical agents are injected into the undesirable tissue to cause ablation, surgical excision, cryotherapy, radiation, photodynamic therapy, Moh's micrographic surgery, topical treatments with 5-fluorouracil, and laser ablation.
Placement of medical instruments within patients transcutaneously or percutaneously, with or without laparoscopic guidance, may be hindered by various connections as well as limitations related to available arrangements, orientations, and configurations of such instruments. Minimally invasive medical procedures also may be complicated by positional deterioration of properly placed instruments caused by muscle contractions, respiration, or various localized and gross movements. Depending on severity, positional deterioration may partly or entirely displace instruments, precipitating a negative outcome. Accordingly, optimal placement and positional maintenance of instruments is desirable.